|
The Nihil novi act adopted by the Polish Diet in 1505 transferred all legislative power from the king
to the Diet. This event marked the beginning of the period known as "Nobles' Democracy" or "Nobles'
Commonwealth" (Rzeczpospolita szlachecka) when the
state was ruled by the "free and equal" Polish nobility (szlachta). The
Lublin Union of 1569 constitued the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as an
influential player in European politics and a vital cultural entity. By the 18th century the nobles' democracy gradually declined to anarchy
making the once powerful Poland vulnerable to foreign influence. Eventually, the country was partitioned by its neighbors and
erased from the map in 1795.
Founding of The Elective Monarchy
The death of Sigismund II Augustus in 1572 was followed by a three-year interregnum
period during which adjustments were made to the constitutional system. The lower nobility was now included in the selection
process, and the power of the monarch was further circumscribed in favor of the expanded noble class. Each king has to sign so
called Henrician Articles, which were the basis of political
system of Poland, and pacta conventa which were various personal
obligations of the chosen king. From that point, the king was effectively a partner with the noble class and constantly
supervised by a group of senators. Once the Jagiellons
disappeared from the scene, the fragile equilibrium of the commonwealth government began to go awry. The constitutional reforms
made the monarchy electoral in fact as well as name. As more and more power went to the noble electors, it also eroded from the
government's center.
In its periodic opportunities to fill the throne, the szlachta
exhibited a preference for foreign candidates who would not found another strong dynasty. This policy produced monarchs who were
either totally ineffective or in constant debilitating conflict with the nobility. Furthermore, aside from notable exceptions
such as the able Transylvanian Stefan Batory (1576-1586), the
kings of alien origin were inclined to subordinate the interests of the commonwealth to those of their own country and ruling
house.
Poland defeated Russia's Ivan the Terrible and retrieved most
of the lost provinces, including Livland. At the end of his reign, Poland ruled two
main Baltic sea ports: Danzig
(Gdansk) controlling the Vistula river trade and Riga controlling Dvina trade. Both cities were among the
largest in the country.
The first few years of Sigismund's reign, until 1598 saw Poland and Sweden united in a personal union that made the Baltic sea an internal lake. However, the rebellion in Sweden drove Sigismund into
prolonged military adventures waged against his native Sweden and later also Russia. On
occasion, these campaigns brought Poland to a nearly complete conquest of Muscovy and
the Baltic coast, were it not for the military burden imposed by the ongoing rivalry on multiple borders: the Turks, the Swedes and the Russians.
Religious and social tensions
The population of Poland-Lithuania was neither overwhelmingly Roman
Catholic nor Polish. This circumstance resulted from the federation with Lithuania, where ethnic Poles were a distinct minority. In those days, to be Polish was much less an indication of ethnicity than of rank; it
was a designation largely reserved for the landed noble class, which included members of Polish and non-Polish origin alike.
Generally speaking, the ethnically non-Polish noble families of Lithuania adopted the Polish language and culture. As a result,
in the eastern territories of the kingdom a Polish or polonized aristocracy dominated over a peasantry whose great majority was
neither Polish nor Catholic. Moreover, the decades of peace brought huge colonisation efforts to Ukraine, which heightened tensions between peasants, Jews and nobles. The
tensions were aggravated by the conflicts between Orthodox and Greek Catholic churches following the Union of Brest and by several Cossack uprisings.
Although Poland-Lithuania escaped the ravages of the Thirty Years' War, which ended in 1648, the ensuing two decades subjected the country to one of its severest trials. This colorful but ruinous interval,
the stuff of legend and the popular historical novels of Nobel laureate
Henryk Sienkiewicz, became known as the potop, or
deluge, for the magnitude and suddenness of its hardships. The emergency began with an uprising of Ukrainian
Cossacks that culminated in a reassertion of an independent Ukraine centered in Kyiv, in spite of Warsaw's efforts to subdue it by
force. After the Ukrainians concluded the Treaty of
Pereyaslav with Muscovy, prolonged and increasing Russian intervention began in
the Ukrainian and Belarusian territories. Taking advantage of Poland's preoccupation and weakening, Charles X of Sweden rapidly overran much of the remaining territory
of the commonwealth in the same year. Pushed to the brink of dissolution, Poland-Lithuania rallied to recover most of its losses
from the Swedes. In exchange for breaking the alliance with Sweden, the ruler of Ducal Prussia was released from his vassalage and became a de facto independent sovereign, while
much of the Polish Protestant nobility went over to the side of the Swedes. Swedish brutality, and especially the ineffectual
siege of Jasna Gora in winter of
1655-1656, raised widespread revolts against Charles,
whom a part of Polish nobles had recognized as their ruler in the meantime. Under Stefan Czarniecki, the Poles and Lithuanians have driven the Swedes from their territory by 1657.
Further complicated by dissenting nobles and wars with the Ottoman Turks, the thirteen-year struggle over control of Ukraine
ended in the Truce of Andrusovo in 1667. Although Russia had been defeated by a new Polish-Ukrainian alliance in 1662, it gained
eastern Ukraine in the peace treaty.
Despite the improbable survival of the commonwealth in the face of the potop, one of the most dramatic instances of
the Poles' knack for prevailing in adversity, the episode inflicted irremediable damage and contributed heavily to the ultimate
demise of the state. When Jan II Kaziemierz abdicated in 1668, the population of the commonwealth had been nearly halved by war and disease. War had
destroyed the economic base of the cities and raised a religious fervor that ended Poland's policy of religious tolerance.
Henceforth, the commonwealth would be on the strategic defensive facing hostile neighbors. Never again would Poland compete with
Russia as a military equal.
Eastern Regions of the realm after the Deluge
Polish culture and the Greek Catholic Church gradually
advanced and by the 18th century, the population of Ducal Prussia was a mixture of Catholic and Protestants and used
both German and Polish languages. The rest of Poland and most of Lithuania remained firmly Roman Catholic, while Ukraine and some parts of Lithuania (i.e., Belarus) were Greek Catholic. The society was split into a polonized upper stratum and peasants of other
nationalities.
Decay of the Commonwealth
During the 18th century the Polish crown itself became subject to the
manipulations of Russia, Sweden, Kingdom of Prussia, France and Austria. Poland's weakness was
exacerbated by an unworkable constitution which allowed each noble or gentry representative in the Sejm to use
his vetoing power to stop further parliamentary proceedings for the given session. This greatly weakened the central authority of
Poland and paved the way for its destruction.
Most accounts of Polish history show the two centuries after the end of the Jagiellon dynasty as a time of decline leading to foreign domination.
Before another hundred years have elapsed, Poland-Lithuania had virtually ceased to function as a coherent and genuinely
independent state. The commonwealth's last martial triumph occurred in 1683 when King
Jan Sobieski drove the Turks from the gates of Vienna with a heavy cavalry charge. Poland's important role in aiding the European alliance to
roll back the Ottoman Empire was rewarded with some territory in Podole by the
Treaty of Karlowicz (1699). Nonetheless, this isolated success did little to mask the internal weakness and paralysis of the
Polish-Lithuanian political system. For the next quarter century, Poland was often a pawn in Russia's campaigns against other
powers. Augustus II of Saxony, who succeeded Jan Sobieski,
involved Poland in Peter the Great's war with Sweden, incurring another round of occupation and devastation by the Swedes between
1704 and 1710.
In the eighteenth century, the powers of the monarchy and
the central administration became purely formal. Kings were denied permission to provide for the elementary requirements of
defense and finance, and aristocratic clans made treaties directly with foreign sovereigns. Attempts at reform were stymied by
the determination of the szlachta to preserve their "golden freedoms" as well as the liberum veto. Because of the chaos
sown by the veto provision, under Augustus III (1733-63) only one of
thirteen Sejm sessions ran to an orderly adjournment.
Unlike Spain and Sweden, great powers that were allowed to settle peacefully into
secondary status at the periphery of Europe at the end of their time of glory, Poland endured its decline at the strategic
crossroads of the continent. Lacking central leadership and impotent in foreign relations, Poland-Lithuania became a chattel of
the ambitious kingdoms that surrounded it, an immense but feeble buffer state. During the reign of Peter the Great (1682-1725), the commonwealth fell under the dominance of Russia, and by the middle of the eighteenth
century Poland-Lithuania had been made a virtual protectorate of its eastern neighbor, retaining only the theoretical right to
self-rule.
The Polish succession war was fought from 1733-1735.
The Three Partitions, (1764-1795)
During the reign of Empress Catherine the Great (1762-1796), Russia intensified its manipulation in Polish
affairs. The Kingdom of Prussia and Austria, the other powers surrounding the republic, also took advantage of internal religious and political
bickering to divide up the country in three partition stages. After two partitions, the third one in 1795 eventually wiped Poland-Lithuania from the map of Europe.
First Partition
In 1764 Catherine dictated the election of her former favorite, Stanislaw August Poniatowski, as king of Poland-Lithuania.
Confounding expectations that he would be an obedient servant of his mistress, Stanislaw August encouraged the modernization of
his realm's ramshackle political system and achieved a temporary moratorium on use of the individual veto in the Sejm (1764-1766). This turnabout threatened to renew the strength
of the monarchy and brought displeasure in the foreign capitals that preferred an inert, pliable Poland. Catherine, being among
the most displeased by Poniatowski's independence, encouraged religious dissension in Poland-Lithuania's substantial Eastern
Orthodox population, which earlier in the eighteenth century had lost the rights enjoyed during the Jagiellon Dynasty. Under heavy Russian pressure, the Sejm restored
Orthodox equality in 1767. This action provoked a Catholic uprising by the Confederation of Bar, a league of Polish nobles that fought until
1772 to revoke Catherine's mandate.
The defeat of the Confederation of Bar again left Poland exposed to the ambitions of its neighbors. Although Catherine
initially opposed partition, Frederick the Great of Prussia
profited from Austria's threatening military position to the southwest by pressing a long-standing proposal to carve territory
from the commonwealth. Catherine, persuaded that Russia did not have the resources to continue its unilateral domination of
Poland, agreed. In 1772 Russia, Prussia, and Austria forced terms of partition upon the
helpless commonwealth under the pretext of restoring order in the anarchic conditions of the country.
National Revival
The first partition in 1772 did not directly threaten the stability of Poland-Lithuania.
Poland still retained extensive territory that included the Polish heartlands. In fact, the shock of the annexations made clear
the dangers of decay in government institutions, creating a body of opinion favorable to reform along the lines of the European Enlightenment. King Stanislaw August supported the progressive
elements in the government and promoted the ideas of foreign political figures such as Edmund Burke and George Washington. At the
same time, Polish intellectuals discussed Enlightenment philosophers such as Montesquieu and
Rousseau. During this period, the concept of democratic
institutions for all classes was accepted in Polish society. Education reform included establishment of the first ministry of
education in Europe. Taxation and the army underwent thorough reform, and government again was centralized in the Permanent
Council. Landholders emancipated large numbers of peasants, although there was no official government decree. Polish cities, in
decline for many decades, were revived by the influence of the Industrial Revolution, especially in mining and textiles.
Stanislaw August's process of renovation reached its climax on May 3, 1791, when, after three years of intense debate, the "Four Years' Sejm" produced Europe's first
written constitution. Conceived in the liberal spirit of the
contemporaneous document in the United States, the constitution recast
Poland-Lithuania as a hereditary monarchy and abolished many of the eccentricities and antiquated features of the old system. The
new constitution abolished the individual veto in parliament; provided a separation of powers among the legislative, executive,
and judicial branches of government; and established "people's sovereignty" (for the noble and bourgeois classes). Although never
fully implemented, the Constitution of May 3 gained an
honored position in the Polish political heritage; tradition marks the anniversary of its passage as the country's most important
civic holiday.
Destruction of Poland-Lithuania
Passage of the constitution alarmed nobles who would lose considerable stature under the new order. In autocratic states such
as Russia, the democratic ideals of the constitution also threatened the existing order, and the prospect of Polish recovery
threatened to end domination of Polish affairs by its neighbors. In 1792 domestic and
foreign reactionaries combined to end the democratization process. Polish conservative factions formed the Confederation of
Targowica and appealed for Russian assistance in restoring the status quo. Catherine gladly used this opportunity; enlisting
Prussian support, she invaded Poland under the pretext of defending Poland's ancient liberties. The irresolute Stanislaw August
capitulated, defecting to the Targowica faction. Arguing that Poland had fallen prey to the radical Jacobinism then at high tide
in France, Russia and Prussia abrogated the Constitution of May 3, carried out a second partition of Poland in 1793, and placed the remainder of the country under occupation by Russian troops.
The second partition was far more injurious than the first. Russia received a vast area of eastern Poland, extending southward
from its gains in the first partition nearly to the Black Sea. To the west,
Prussia received an area known as South Prussia, nearly twice the size of its first-partition gains along the Baltic, as well as
the port of Danzig. Thus, Poland's neighbors reduced the commonwealth to a rump state and plainly signaled their designs to
abolish it altogether at their convenience.
In a gesture of defiance, a general Polish revolt broke out in 1794 under the leadership
of Tadeusz Kosciuszko (Kosciuszko Uprising), a military officer who had rendered notable service in the American Revolution. Kosciuszko's ragtag insurgent armies won some
initial successes, but they eventually fell before the superior forces of Russian General Alexander Suvorov. In the wake of the insurrection of 1794,
Russia, Prussia, and Austria carried out the third and final partition of Poland-Lithuania in 1795, erasing the Commonwealth of Two Nations from the map and pledging never to let it return.
Much of Europe condemned the dismemberment as an international crime without historical parallel. Amid the distractions of the
French Revolution and its attendant wars, however, no state
actively opposed the annexations. In the long term, the dissolution of Poland-Lithuania upset the traditional European balance of
power, dramatically magnifying the influence of Russia and paving the way for the Germany that would emerge in the nineteenth
century with Prussia at its core. For the Poles, the third partition began a period of continuous foreign rule that would endure
well over a century.
See also: Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth
Reference
|